Face Off State-of-Play Thread

Face Off State-of-Play 3 thread

Welcome back to another season of Face Off! Once again, we’ve got a group of aspiring special effects makeup artists hoping to win big. This season’s prizes include a position as guest lecturer at the Makeup Forever Academy in New York and Paris, a 2012 Toyota Camry hybrid and $100,000.

This thread will be updated each week what you need to know if you missed the episode.

Week 1: “A Force to be Reckoned With”

Special Guest: Sean Astin acts as “host” for the contestants at the “Welcome” cocktail/pool party. He is also the judge for the first Foundation Challenge.

Foundation Challenge: The contestants must create a unique face on a model and incorporate one item they find in the rooftop pool area where the welcome cocktail party is being held.

Challenge Winner: Eric, who will now have immunity from elimination this week.

Spotlight Challenge: The contestants, in teams of two, have to create an alien for the cantina scene in Star Wars. The winner will be featured on the official Star Wars website. The teams are:

Alana and Nicole

CC and Derek

Joe and Tommy

Roy and Rod

Laura and Sarah

Eric and Jason

Judges
Glenn Hetrick and Ve Neill are back for another season. Since Patrick Tatopoulos is headed off to work on the next 300 movie, Neville Page will be replacing him on the judging panel. Page has worked on films like Avatar, the latest Star Trek reboot and The Amazing Spiderman. For the premiere, all four judges were on the panel.

Top Designs: Rod and Roy impressed the judges with their little alien in a man-sized robot exoskeleton and; the judges praised the clean work on Laura and Sarah’s female bounty hunter character.

Bottom Designs: C.C. and Derek’s design may have been okay, but the judges didn’t like the dark red and black paint job and; Tommy and Joe, whose design looked more like a child’s Halloween mask.

Highlights/Lowlights:

McKenzie Westmore dazzling all the contestants with her golden girl looks at the welcome party

The contestants geeking out over meeting Sean Astin, especially Tommy, who admitted to Sean that he had just watched one of his movies a few days earlier.

Tommy and Joe’s disastrous partnership, which resulted in a tragically bad final design

Rod finishing enough of own work to pitch in and help Alana and Nicole with their design

Joe caving under the pressure of negative criticism and walking out of the competition.

Winner: Rod

Eliminated: Since Joe left the competition, there were no other eliminations this week.

Re: Face Off State-of-Play Thread

Week 2: Pirate Treasure

Spotlight Challenge: The contestants traveled by train from LA to San Diego to meet McKenzie in front of the HMS Surprise, a replica of a Royal Navy frigate used in movies like Master and Commander and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. McKenzie revealed that, in this week’s Spotlight Challenge, they would have to create original pirate characters incorporating a mystery element. Each contestant boarded the ship with a key to unlock one treasure chest containing that element. As an added incentive, the winner of the challenge got $5,000.
Here’s how it broke down:

Sarah – sea urchin

Laura – shells

Roy – daggers

Rod – seahorse

Eric – spyglass

C.C. - barnacles

Jason – jewels

Alana – crabs

Nicole – ship in a bottle

Tommy – kelp

Derek - netting

Judges

Glenn Hetrick

Ve Neill

Neville Page

Top Designs: Roy, Laura and Sarah

Bottom Designs: C.C., Jason and Eric

Highlights/Lowlights:

Rod ending up in a wrist brace after over-working it in the last challenge, which means he had to complete much of his design this week with only one hand

Sarah rigging her design to ooze yellow slime for the judges and then the judges reacting with disgust and delight

Several of the contestants pitching in to help Alana when her inexperience with molds caused her problems

Eric going ahead with his steampunk-y design, even after Ve Neill warns him about Glenn’s prowess in that area

The HUGE divide between the top three designs and the bottom three designs

Winner: Sarah’s sea urchin inspired design won over the judges.

Eliminated: C.C. was sent home for her “face flute”-like barnacle pirate.

Re: Face Off State-of-Play Thread

Week 3: Year of the Dragon

Spotlight Challenge: The contestants were paired up for a Chinese Dragon-themed challenge. Each team created an original Chinese New Year’s dragon that incorporated characteristics of each team member’s Chinese zodiac sign. For the judging panel, the models performed a dance, so the design had to allow for movement and stay secure if the model perspired.

Re: Face Off State-of-Play Thread

Foundation Challenge: The contestants meet McKenzie and special guest Laila Ali at a boxing gym in downtown LA. The challenge is to create an original trauma makeup depicting the aftermath of a fight.

Foundation Challenge Winner: Jason

Spotlight Challenge: Create a completely unique take on one of the iconic characters of Alice in Wonderland…if they were infected with the t-Virus from the Resident Evil movie franchise. The contestants choose their characters:

Alice: Nicole

White Rabbit: Alana, Tommy

Cheshire Cat: Sarah, Derek

Mad Hatter: Laura, Jason

The Queen: Roy, Rod

Judges

Glenn Hetrick

Ve Neill

Neville Page

Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson

Top Designs: Roy’s Queen, Derek’s Cheshire Cat and Laura’s Mad Hatter

Bottom Designs: Nicole’s Alice, Tommy’s White Rabbit and Rod’s Queen

Highlights/Lowlights:

Laila Ali being disturbingly authoritative when talking about the correct consistency of blood and the believability of the various injuries depicted in the Foundation Challenge

Butterfingers Alana dropping her cowl on the floor and nearly breaking off the rabbit ears

Roy pitching in to help Alana when her rabbit ears won’t stay upright

Rod losing his way with his design for the first time all season and not being able to translate his idea of a bloodthirsty and metabolically-challenged Queen into an effective design

Tommy inexplicably dressing his White Rabbit in a flannel shirt

Winner: Roy

Eliminated: Nicole

Next Week: “Supermobile” – Director Kevin Smith is the guest judge in a comic book-inspired episode.